As you lie stretched on the familiar slab

  Comfort yourself by swearing to live on

  In bloody vengeance on all bulls. It is

  The heifer’s horns that defy surgery.

  CONFITEOR UT FAS

  Alienae civitates

  Quas inspexit voster vates,

  Etsi tanto procul jacent,

  Non tantum regresso placent

  Quam (confiteor, ut fas)

  Mitis Universitas

  De qua nusquam linguae tacent,

  Qua dicendi libertas.

  NEW MOON THROUGH GLASS

  I shall wrap myself in a many-coloured cloak

  Where the moon shines new on Castle Crystal,

  But make no boast of a passage forced

  Through red flames, choking blizzard and black fog.

  The extremes! courtesy of love is silence.

  DYNAMITE BARBEE

  Dynamite Barbee, no clo’es on,

  Rode on a lion whose name was John –

  Dynamite Barbee, no! man, no!

  She’ll make trouble wherever she go.

  ‘Short life only and a long time dead,

  Got to be practical,’ Barbee said.

  Judged old lion was nigh to death,

  Changed to a jackal, corpse on his breath –

  Stink of corpse on her hands and hair,

  Dynamite Barbee, she don’t care:

  ‘Short life only and a long time dead,

  Got to be practical,’ Barbee said.

  Dynamite Barbee never got rich –

  Things she done for that son of a bitch!

  Pawned her ear-rings, pawned her fur,

  And big gold watch that Lion gave her:

  ‘Short life only and a long time dead,

  Got to be practical,’ Barbee said.

  Sunk to the bottom, we guessed she would:

  Three times down and she’s gone for good.

  Dynamite Barbee, no! man, no!

  That mean jackal never let her go –

  ‘Short life only and a long time dead,

  Got to be practical,’ Barbee said.

  WHEN A NECKLACE BREAKS

  Two lovers sat together under a tree

  When suddenly he spoke in a loveless voice –

  She answered him as a true woman should,

  And the dog howled at their feet.

  When a necklace breaks and the beads spill,

  Bouncing and rolling across the parquet floor

  That is no fatal sign, only a warning

  To gather, count, rethread.

  Common danger can knit together in love

  Almost any desperate human pair;

  But the danger gone, they will part silently,

  To forget each other’s names.

  You are good, you are indeed a good sword,

  True steel welded and tempered without flaw,

  Fit only for a King at his coronation –

  Must my scabbard wear a worse?

  Up rose the sun, blazing in at the window:

  If you honour me as you say, why do you spend

  All night in talk and, at my first appearance

  Sleep almost till I set?

  A QUEEN

  Let other women wrangle with their dooms,

  A queen is doomed to self-sufficiency;

  Shown herself at whatever age she will,

  Tempestuous child, grand lady, gruesome hag,

  Shifting her mask and dress continually;

  Scatters benignant smiles on common folk

  Who neither envy or impugn her powers;

  Scoffs at all vauntings of nobility;

  Summons to table jugglers, cardinals,

  Assassins, dancing women, generals,

  From whom she learns resource of policy;

  And scars her chosen lover’s innocent breast

  With wounds that testify her royalty.

  IF LOVE BECOMES A GAME

  If love becomes a game the sweet young fool,

  Now both player and prize,

  Learns to resist a gentlemanly rule,

  Against unsporting lies,

  That draws her far-from-ladylike attack

  When, as a last resort,

  She’s kicked the table down, scattered the pack

  And turned to other sport –

  To sport, alas, with some gay gambling boy

  Who, judging it no sin

  Her sweet, young, foolish licence to enjoy,

  Can never help but win.

  QUEEN SILVER AND KING GOLD

  Queen Silver and King Gold for untold years

  Held planetary sway

  Over such common clay

  As led its life in eulogy of theirs –

  And are still fawned upon even today,

  By Voucher, most astute of Ministers

  With Town, Court, Bourse and Army in his pay,

  Who, if he had his way…

  LEARN THAT BY HEART

  If there’s a poem in this book

  To which I’ve put my name

  And Teacher growls: ‘Learn that by heart!’,

  Don’t let me bear the blame.

  Tell Teacher there are certain things

  No one should ever do –

  Say that I write to please myself,

  Not just to torture you.

  Press Teacher’s nose against the wall,

  Try not to seem unkind,

  But say: ‘Stop there till he forgives

  The deed you had in mind.’

  SONG: ONE IN MANY

  To be loved by many and to love many

  Is never to die, is to live purely,

  Never to lack for noble company;

  But to be loved by many, and to love many

  Is to be singled out by one only,

  Of all those many, who can love truly.

  ‘My doors are barred, my blinds are drawn; for surely

  This is the end of love. I loved her wholly –

  Now she is lost to me among the many.’

  What! In despair for one whom you loved wholly,

  You who love many and are loved by many,

  Have you no eyes for her who lives purely,

  With eyes unhooded, with no hate nor envy,

  Singling you out to love wholly and surely

  Nor ever lacks for noble company?

  A LATE DAFFODIL FOR THE PRINCE OF GWYNEDD

  Thrice fortunate is he who winneth

  As heir to Maelgwyn Pendragon

  Grand welcome at the heart of Gwynedd:

  Setting his princely feet upon

  Those golden streets of Sinadon

  And guarded against evil will

  By Dewi Sant’s own daffodil.

  1999

  These are the good old days: appreciate them!

  Hope has been lost, of course, but don’t forget

  We’re still three to a bunk, beer is still drunk,

  And ten bob buys a genuine cigarette.

  ANGRY GARDENER

  Gentle wild flowers, each with its own strange, twisting,

  Graceful habit of growth and innocent aspect,

  Find careless welcome to waste garden-corners.

  Yet should some honey-gathering go-between

  Dare to inaugurate miscegenation

  On your parterres or even in waste-corners,

  With what blind rage you tear the bastards out!

  SONG: WEATHER

  What rules the weather for your lover

  Is neither wind nor rain nor mist;

  Nor does his private climate alter,

  Since the proud night when first you kissed;

  For still the pulsing of his blood –

  Young manhood awed by womanhood –

  Makes love his weather-vane and weather

  With neither wind, nor rain, nor mist.

  FIERY ORCHARD

  Will she ever need to fetch him home again

  To man’s beginnings, to that fiery orchard
br />
  Where frantic Adam lost himself in Eve?

  Once in distress they drew together there,

  Gasping, confused and blind,

  Clasping and clasped in desperate make-believe;

  Yet rose entire, each with a whole mind.

  DEFEAT OF TIME

  The omens being less than sympathetic,

  Love had recourse to its own magic

  For the defeat of time.

  This consummation (Love ruled briefly)

  Lies beyond all denial where both hearts burn

  As in a single body.

  Whether in distant past or future

  Who cares? Together sealed

  Beyond all temporal favour.

  SIX BLANKETS

  How long is love, or how short is love,

  And what’s the length of a string?

  Nothing to something and back to nothing

  And around a small gold ring.

  But to you I shall never, alas, be wed

  Though long I may mourn for you:

  Across your bed six blankets are spread

  And I choke under more than two.

  THE NOTE

  And though your hasty note be bare

  But for the secret sign you use,

  I need no more – the essential news

  Being instantly deciphered there:

  That still you laugh, dance, dream and live,

  That all you gave me you still give.

  THE HEDGEPIG

  The letter that you wrote me in your head,

  Last week, arrived at last by pigeon post,

  Crumpled and smudged, but legible. It read:

  ‘Of all my countless worries I hate most

  Pretending that your tickly-prickly foe

  Sends you his love…He died three weeks ago.’

  The nightmare flew me to you. First I hovered

  Over your bed, then I dropped into the shed

  Where, with a smile of triumph, I discovered

  That you were wrong. Your hedgepig was not dead,

  But hibernating in that cosy ball

  Which all fat hedgepigs use when the leaves fall.

  WHEN HE SAT WRITING

  (Song for Shakespeare’s Birthday, 1972)

  When Will sat forging plays with busy friends

  He wrote no worse than they;

  When he sat writing for his loves, and us,

  Such play outshone all play –

  And still it does today.

  Comparisons are foolish: love alone

  Established Shakespeare’s fame.

  There’s many a poet, laurelled on a throne,

  For whom the critics claim

  A like poetic flame.

  Reject all rivals, even those richly blessed

  With histrionic art…

  For groundlings he might jest, like all the rest,

  But suffered grief apart

  Mourning with his whole heart.

  FOUR POEMS FROM DEYA: A PORTFOLIO (1972)

  [OURS HAS NO BEARING ON QUOTIDIAN LOVE]

  Ours has no bearing on quotidian love

  And indeed how could it, while we live above

  Quotidian circumstance, fitfully meeting,

  Communing fitfully? Nor is ours bound

  Like other loves to any common ground.

  This is no marriage, nor must ever be –

  We were both born more than free,

  But our discovery of togetherness

  Earned us a weight of silence, our charmed eyes

  Lost in astonishment at such excess.

  Silence, love’s discipline by night or day –

  Each time we meet, the occasion calls for silence

  As at some unbelievable coincidence,

  And, unbelievably, tomorrow will be Sunday:

  Silence all but mistakable for absence.

  [LOVE MAKES POOR SENSE IN EITHER SPEECH OR LETTERS]

  Love makes poor sense in either speech or letters:

  Its final truth cannot be told with words,

  Only with grave and lengthening silences –

  Such as might greet discoveries of truth.

  Why then should I fall sick if weeks elapse

  Without even a hasty scrawl from you?

  Does this denote some fault in me, or merely

  A woman’s freedom from the snares of time?

  And if I ceased to write, would you still love me?

  [IS THERE ANOTHER MAM?]

  Is there another man

  Can claim what you deny me?

  Is there another man?

  The letters that you write me

  Come seldom and invite me

  To love you while I can –

  Is there another man?

  If there’s another man

  For whom you guard your beauty,

  If there’s another man,

  Send no more letters to me

  With kisses to renew me –

  What kisses ever can,

  If there’s another man?

  Yet where’s the other man

  Who loves you for your virtue,

  Or where’s the other man

  Whose kiss of life can cure you?

  Then let your pulse assure you

  That there’s no other woman

  With me for other man.

  [CONFESS, SWEETHEART, CONFESS]

  Confess, sweetheart, confess

  You cannot marry me:

  Ours is no wedlock nor could ever be,

  Though both live more than free –

  Our childish greeting of togetherness

  Grown to this weight of magic: our charmed eyes

  Lost in bewilderment at love’s excess.

  Nor can we ever become otherwise

  Than what love on the hillside made of us:

  We scanned each other with close eyes,

  We read fateful togetherness:

  The door, the key, the power,

  The unfolding flower.

  And still we brood, our fingers twitch,

  Nor can we yet prognosticate

  The climax of our fate –

  The occasion when, the country which –

  Determined only that this brooding season

  Of timeless love, this tremulous obsession,

  Has its own fateful reason.

  THE NOOSE

  This is my own clear voice:

  Sweetheart, keep faith with me.

  A noose hangs from the rope;

  I do not bring blind hope

  But love in certainty.

  Choose, for you have no choice:

  Sweetheart, stand fast by me.

  THE MORAL LAW

  The moral law, being male, need not apply

  To a true-hearted woman, though its breach

  By such a woman wounds the male pride

  Even of a lover loyal and wise enough

  To condone her innocence –

  Then proudly let him differentiate

  Between tormented flesh and troubled spirit,

  Resigned to nothingness in her defence.

  BODIES ENTRANCED

  Where poems, love also;

  Where love, likewise magic

  With powers indomitable,

  Powers inexpendable,

  Seasoned in love.

  Whence come all true poems,

  Their power and their magic

  Of two souls as one?

  From slow recognition

  Of bodies entranced.

  Which entrancement of bodies

  Will rise from no impulse

  To blind propagation,

  But claim recognition

  Of truth beyond love.

  WHO MUST IT BE?

  And if I suddenly die, will she have killed me,

  And must the wide world know it,

  Gasping at mention of her name,

  My fellow poet,

  Therefore the first to blame?

  The child who years ago had mer
cy on me,

  Dragging me from the briars,

  Thrusting this pen back in my hand,

  Hugging me close

  For Love to understand?

  And if I live will it be she who saved me

  From the tiger and the bear,

  A reckless child among tall trees

  Balm on her fingers,

  Her warm heart at ease?

  THIS IS THE SEASON

  This is the season

  Of useless hunger,

  Of strengthened reason,

  Of more than danger,

  Of endless drought,

  Which Death, the stranger,

  Has brought about.

  This is the ending

  Of promised plenty,

  Of docile standing

  Before God’s throne,

  The Goddess hidden

  Beyond man’s midden,

  Proud and alone.

  UNCO

  The unco-guid and unco-ordinated

  Walk hand in hand, closely related,

  Being from birth so fated.

  Unpublished and Posthumously Published Poems

  A Selection

  JUVENILIA: 1910-1914

  THE FIRST POEM

  No, not for me the lute or lyre!

  A knight, I’ll ride my thoughts of fire

  And fly on wings for ever and aye

  Through an unresisting starry sky,

  Where the gleaming aether turns and sings

  Its strange slow song of the Birth of Things.

  And I cry: ‘Oh, if I had never known

  The cares of this petty world! Alone,

  Alone I’d fly, unfettered, free,

  Through the Garden of God, Infinity.’

  And there lie paths that none have trod

  And none again shall tread,

  But I alone, with Rapture shod

  With Triumph garlanded –

  NIGHTMARE

  Oh, some warlock’s spell has bound me,

  Myriad torches flare around me.

  The warlock’s shroud,

  A misty cloud,

  Swims before me. Sudden, loud,

  In my ear some creature cries,